You’ve set up your newsletter and maybe got your first couple of subscribers, but you want to grow your newsletter much more.
Newsletters are an essential part of email marketing. With newsletters, you can easily build your email list by acquiring new newsletter subscribers. And then, you can start to nurture your email list with newsletter content and more.
Promoting your newsletter is essential for growing your subscriber base and increasing engagement with your audience. This article will explore 15 innovative methods to promote your newsletter innovatively.
From leveraging social proof to collaborating with influencers, these strategies will help you attract more subscribers and achieve your newsletter’s goals.
Table of Contents
Benefits of Promoting Your Newsletter
Before delving into the methods, it’s essential to understand the benefits of promoting your newsletter. Promoting your newsletter can:
- Expand your reach and attract a larger audience.
- Establish yourself as an authority in your niche or industry.
- Increase engagement and create stronger relationships with your subscribers.
- Drive traffic to your website and increase conversions.
- Provide opportunities for collaboration and cross-promotion.
All of this sounds great, right? So let’s get right into the 15 methods of promoting your newsletter.
15 Methods to Promote Your Newsletter
Newsletters have become a powerful tool for businesses and individuals to connect with their audience, share valuable content, and build lasting relationships. To maximise its impact, you must promote it to attract new subscribers.
But without further ado, let’s start with the first method.
1. Add a signup form to your blog posts
Embed a sign-up form within your blog posts to capture the attention of readers who are already interested in your content. Offer them a convenient way to subscribe without leaving the page.
Here is an example of how I do it.
Join 700+ to get a marketing tool review from my YouTube channel every week, which I’ll share with you.
And on top of that, an actionable marketing tip, every week.
- Use social proof to lend credibility to your brand and your offerings. This will help establish trust with your subscribers, as they see evidence that others have had positive experiences with your products or services.
- Showing the number of subscribers can also create a sense of trust and credibility, motivating potential subscribers to join and engage with your content.
- You should also have multiple reasons why they should sign up for your newsletter. It’s not enough to tell them to sign-up. You need to entice them by giving them reasons for what they get, how often they get it, and the benefits of signing up for your newsletter.
2. Offer e-books, courses or other free insights in return for newsletter sign up
By offering high-quality content free, you establish yourself as an expert or authority in your field and build trust with your potential subscribers. This value proposition entices users to subscribe to your newsletter to receive more valuable content in the future.
This can be done simply by using a tool like Convertbox, where you simply ask for their email and in return, they get your e-book or a mini course.
This is also a way of upselling in the end. If they liked your mini-course, chances are high that they’ll want to pay for the entire course.
On the image to the right, you can see how I’m doing it on my website.
Pro tip: If you have the resources, build individual e-books for each platform. People on Twitter want to know more about Twitter. People on YouTube want to know more about YouTube. You’ll see a significant boost by segmenting your e-book content to the platform.
3. Make a landing page for your newsletter
Landing pages are vital for promoting newsletters due to their conversion-focused nature, higher conversion rates, ability to deliver tailored messaging, data collection capabilities, and optimization potential.
They provide a dedicated platform to attract, engage, and convert visitors into loyal subscribers, ultimately enhancing the success of your newsletter promotion campaigns.
An effective landing page should feature a single value proposition, a clear and focused message, and a sign-up for your newsletter. The primary focus of your landing page is to create sign-ups. Remember to add buttons throughout your page that scrolls back to your sign-up page.
4. Publicly show earlier issues of your newsletter
Publicly display previous issues of your newsletter on your website. This allows potential subscribers to glimpse your content, increasing their interest and encouraging them to sign up.
You can easily do this if you’re using Substack, but other newsletter platforms can also do the job. Here are 11 newsletter platforms where. Many of them allow you to show previous issues publicly.
5. Share your newsletter on social media
Integrating newsletter subscriptions into your social media campaigns can significantly enhance the growth of your mailing list. By asking participants to provide their email as a condition of entry, you can effectively boost your subscriber base.
- Twitter’s fast-paced nature makes it ideal for sharing real-time updates and news related to your newsletter. You can inform your followers about the latest content, exclusive offers, or upcoming events, keeping them engaged and interested in your newsletter.
- Another thing you can do with Twitter is staying active in your niche on Twitter while having a link to your newsletter in your bio. When people visit your profile, they’ll click on the link to your newsletter, and you’ll get organic sign-ups.
- By utilizing the extensive user base, targeted advertising, engaging visual content, and social sharing features of Facebook, you can effectively promote your newsletter, increase subscribers, and create a thriving community around your content.
- If you’re running a YouTube channel, it’s obvious to subtly include your newsletter in your videos.
- Instagram stories also provide a unique and temporary format for sharing content. You can use stories to announce upcoming newsletter releases, share exclusive sneak peeks, or run limited-time promotions to create a sense of urgency and encourage immediate action from your audience.
6. Write guest posts for other authority websites linking to your newsletter
Pitch guest posts ideas to popular websites within your industry. Include a compelling call to action and a link to your newsletter in the author bio. This exposes your content to a broader audience and increases the chances of gaining new subscribers.
An example of an outreach to a website to get a guest post could be something like this:
[DOMAIN] Staff,
You have an article on the [ARTICLE_TITLE] that used to perform well in search engines.
Your content seems to have aged, and many of the facts you referenced have become outdated.
I’ve just completed a round of research on this topic and would like to write it for you.
I’ve done this before for [DOMAIN] with [AN_ARTICLE_TITLE].
I’m available upon your reply.
Regards,
[YOUR_NAME]
7. Cross-promote your newsletter with other newsletters
Newsletter cross-promotion is a cost-effective and mutually beneficial strategy to reach your target audience. Collaborate with other newsletter creators in your niche to cross-promote each other’s newsletters.
This allows you to tap into new audiences and attract subscribers who are already interested in similar content.
You can start on Twitter or newsletter directories such as Newsletter Directory to find other newsletters.
8. Submit your newsletter to directories
Submit your newsletter to relevant directories and platforms catering to newsletters. This can increase its visibility and attract potential subscribers who actively seek out newsletters in your niche.
It enhances visibility, targets specific audiences, provides backlink opportunities, and facilitates social media exposure.
Here is a list of newsletter directories where you can submit your newsletter:
2. Rad Letters
3. Paved
5. Upstart.me
6. Letterlist
7. InboxReads
8. Letterstack
9. Hecto
10. Email Love
9. Advertise your newsletter in other newsletters
Advertising your newsletter in other newsletters offers targeted access to interested readers, builds trust and credibility through endorsements, expands your reach, creates niche relationships, and serves as social proof.
By leveraging the trust and credibility of other authors and their endorsements, potential subscribers are more likely to trust your content and subscribe to your newsletter. This strategy helps you tap into a new audience and establish your newsletter as a valuable resource within your niche.
You can start doing this by finding a newsletter in a newsletter directory or contacting the newsletters you’re interested in and discussing advertising rates.
More significant newsletters often have fixed rates, while smaller ones might be willing to negotiate. It’s essential to consider the size of the newsletter, the placement of your ad within it, and the estimated reach and frequency of the ad.
These factors play a role in determining the cost, as newsletters typically charge per thousand viewers. An ad in a single newsletter issue can be anywhere from $10 to $300.
10. Promote your newsletter on other’s podcasts
Promoting your newsletter on podcasts provides a powerful platform for reaching a trusting audience. There are 2 ways of using podcasts to promote your newsletter. The first method is paid ads from the author. When podcast hosts endorse your newsletter, their credibility and social proof increase the likelihood of listener subscriptions.
The second method is you being a guest. The immersive nature of audio storytelling engages listeners, and the in-depth discussions allow you to share valuable insights, give potential subscribers a glimpse into your newsletter’s content and encourage them to seek additional material from you.
11. Run a giveaway with newsletter sign-ups
Running a giveaway with newsletter sign-up is an effective promotional tool that incentivises sign-ups, attracts a targeted audience, and creates long-term subscriber engagement. By offering desirable prizes, you motivate your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter, increasing their motivation to take action.
This is the same model as using an e-book, but a giveaway is not happening daily, so the prizes are often of much greater value than an e-book.
You can then take it further and use a tool like Perkzilla to help spread the word about your giveaway on social media.
12. Create a referral program
Implement a referral program where your subscribers earn rewards or bonuses for sharing your newsletter with others. This encourages word-of-mouth promotion and turns your subscribers into advocates.
Here is how Morning brew does it, and it has been one of the driving factors behind their great success with their newsletter.
13. Add a premium newsletter
Offering exclusive and premium content to your subscribers creates a sense of exclusivity and encourages them to upgrade to the premium version. This added value proposition could attract new subscribers who are willing to pay for high-quality, in-depth, or specialised content.
Another way is to let people on your free newsletter get access to your premium newsletter by inviting a certain amount of subscribers to your free newsletter. Then you grow your newsletter without your interference.
14. Use influencers to share your newsletter
Usually, we would use influencers for physical products, but why not in newsletters?
Using influencers to promote your newsletter is a highly effective strategy for boosting visibility and attracting new subscribers. With their wide reach and engaged audience, influencers help you target potential subscribers who are genuinely interested in your content.
Their recommendations and endorsements lend credibility to your newsletter, enhancing its perceived value. You can also increase brand awareness, leverage authentic content, gain exposure on social media, and tap into their expertise.
15. Add a CTA to your email signature
Adding a CTA with a subscription link to your email signature simplifies the process for recipients to access and subscribe to your newsletter. By including it in your signature, you passively promote your newsletter without requiring additional effort or being too direct in your approach.
This approach creates awareness and provides a convenient way for interested individuals to subscribe with just a click, eliminating any extra steps or search efforts.
This will not be a game-changer for your newsletter growth, but it might help a little. You can also take it a step further and add a banner image in your signature highlighting your newsletter, including benefits, amount of subscribers and more.
Conclusion
Effectively promoting your newsletter is crucial for growing your subscriber base and engaging your audience. It requires creativity, persistence, and a multi-faceted approach.
By utilising innovative methods, you can expand your reach, establish authority, increase engagement, drive website traffic, and create collaborative opportunities. From embedding sign-up forms in blog posts to leveraging social media platforms, collaborating with influencers, and utilising email signatures, each method offers unique advantages to attract new subscribers and achieve your newsletter’s goals.
Experiment with different strategies, track your results and refine your approach to grow your newsletter’s reach and impact continuously.
Through these strategies, you can effectively promote your newsletter, nurture reader loyalty, and maximise your content’s impact.
